The Data Center is an integral part of an organization's IT infrastructure. As a matter of fact, the IT Data Center host all IT infrastructures and supporting equipment. To ensure the security, effectiveness and efficiency of an IT Data Center, periodic security assessment or inspection, in the form of audit is required to provide reasonable assurance to stakeholders and management that their investment in physical IT hardware and supporting equipment such as power, cooling, environmental, safety and security equipment/devices are reasonably protected and functioning optimally. As such, it is the responsibility of the internal audit team or such persons or department saddled with assurance or oversight duties to routinely perform audit of Data Center as required. In doing so, the scope of such audit should reasonably cover all aspects of Data Center Operations, infrastructures, administration, human capacity, relevance to the business, among others and should be part of the audit work program for the Data Center. Some of the key areas of the Data Center to be cover are not limited to the following.
Data Center Administration and Organization
Environmental Monitoring Controls
Safety and Emergency Procedures
IT Service Delivery Management
IT Infrastructure Maintenance and Support
Physical and Logical Access Controls
Power Supply Management and Adequacy
Redundancy and Operational Resilience
Networking and Telecommunication Controls
Human Capacity Management
Third Party Services and Support
The PDF document below detailed the audit work program or checklist that can be used to successfully perform audit of an IT Data Center. The Controls specified therein are general controls, which can be adopted and used within the context of the users'/organizations' operating environments, regulatory policies as well as applicable laws/jurisdictions.